Tag Archives: swollen finger joint

The pain levels had dropped slightly in the last post, but they came back with a vengeance for a couple of weeks and have now subsided again. I’ve finally got round to keeping a pain record in the hope of establishing some sort of pattern. I think female hormones definitely affect my joints, so my predication is that it’s going to get worse next week – we’ll see!

I finally got to visit a gastroenterologist. Nice registrar to chat to, but nothing earth shattering came of the visit. Was I following the diet? Yes. But I had joint pain and fatigue still? Yes. Hmmmmm, that’s odd, hopefully it will improve soon, see you in six months.

Winter is kicking in and low temperatures in a cold house are not helping my cause at all. It seems almost every item of clothing I own is now made of thinsulate/some sort of thermal fleece. Despite this the swollen finger joint thing has started again – I can’t bend my right index finger very much, which is making life even more fun:

My old friend anxiety is creeping back in as well. I am a natural worrier and a perfectionist, so I know that even when I am in a good place that I tend to double-check things and do more than is necessary to make sure things go right first time. I am still finding errors at work that I made over the past year, which is not good for my ego and I know I am getting ridiculously over-anxious about tasks that I have done.

I was almost tempted to drive to the office in the middle of the night last night to check that something was in the safe. The logical/sane part of my mind just about won, but it was a close run thing. And I’m not sat here waiting for the phone to ring because my colleagues can’t find the thing in the safe because I stupidly shredded it/posted it to someone random. No. Not at all. I have one more event next week to stress about and once that is over hopefully I will bounce back a bit.

The magic dashboard behind this blog tells me that a lot the people have found it because they were searching for information on swollen finger joints, gout, chilblains and the like.

So, an update on my swollen finger joint – it isn’t swollen any more! The joint kept growing larger until you couldn’t really see the original lump that appeared, it was just generally swollen.

When the swelling was at its worst, I could only just bend the middle joint and if I tried to make a fist the finger it was very painful – I could feel the skin having to stretch.

The swelling has gone now, so it lasted about a month, which I think is about the same as happened a couple of years ago. Everything subsided during the week that I had the D&V bug.

My theory is that the swelling was chilblain related and went away during that week because I was inside the house all the time and not doing regular washing up (as we weren’t eating much!), so my hands were not being exposed to changes in temperature. The skin still has a thickened look to it, it has a purpley-grey tinge and there is a similar discolouration further up the finger where I think another chilblain had started to form, but at least it is working again.

I don’t know if it’s the associated stresses of having finally had the endoscopy, the continual grinding down of being ill but I have to say I feel really horrible at the moment. I went into work yesterday, people started asking how things had gone with the endoscopy and I started blubbing like a baby. Haven’t done that for a while… I was awake most of the night and have given in and phoned in sick today.

My finger joints and knees are radiating pain, I have pins and needles sensations in my fingertips, my toe joints hurt and I have chilblains that are making it painful to stand up/walk. My shoulder blades hurt too and my eyes are so heavy as if I have been deprived of sleep or crying for days. I am trying my GP’s suggestion of taking regular/continual paracetemol, but this doesn’t seem to improve things at all and I’m not convinced it’s particularly healthy to take painkillers in this way.

I can’t seem to string ideas together (which is not helping with trying to work out what to eat/not eat, especially when trying to figure out food for everyone and how I juggle it). Oh, and the main oven has decided my cooking is too much for it and stopped working, leaving me with the small oven that takes much longer to heat up and has only room for one baking tray.

At last though there is something that can be seen! One of my finger joints is swollen and red on one side. I had something similar a couple of years ago, when two joints were involved. Back then they tested for Rheumatoid Arthritis and gout (more glamour…) which both came back negative and by the time the results come through the swelling was going down so that was that. I thought it might be connected to chilblains, who knows?

Finger joints – 2010

Finger joints – 2012

Maybe I could publish pictures of my body parts on a week by week basis and you could build a model of me, like those magazines that appear in the newsagents – ‘Build your own Titanic in only 478 instalments – first issue 99p, all others £7.99’??

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After a year of ill-health in 2011 I hoped that going gluten-free in 2012 was going to be the solution... It's 2014 now and I'm still floundering around trying to understand what my body thinks it is up to!
I have gained more official diagnoses, not only am I coeliac, I am having an early menopause and have a prizewinning kidney stone.